7 Benefits of using a locally owned lawn care company

TruGreen has hundreds of offices throughout the United States and is a well-recognized lawn care brand. Each office is run by individual branch managers, so there can be some inconsistencies in the quality of service each office offers. Due to the size of the company, it can be difficult to reach upper management. Consumers are dependent on trying to resolve issues with the branch manager and may have difficulty reaching a resolution if they can not reach one with their local branch.

Local, family-owned companies typically have the company owners present in the office, so if there is an issue, it would continue to travel up the chain of command until a resolution is reached. It is not uncommon for our team at Blades of Green to discuss any issues a customer faces in our management’s daily meeting. The intention behind this is to help find a solution as quickly as possible and to the best of our ability.

A local, family-owned company also has a much smaller customer base than a nationwide company. Your local lawn care company is quite literally servicing your neighbors, friends, teachers, and other community members. Because we know our customers on a personal level by sharing the same community, it is even more important to us to care for them like they are our family. Additionally, we support local charities, our money stays local, and we provide scholarship funds for local students.

Large nationwide companies have millions of customers throughout the country and typically do not provide such personalized service or become as involved in the local community.

It is very common to have a different technician service your home with a nationwide company not only due to their size but also because of their turnover rate.

Our company strives to send the same team of technicians to each homeowner as often as possible so that you are building trust with them. Our team is trained to help troubleshoot lawn issues, and offer suggestions for not just your lawn but also your home. It is not uncommon for our techs to bring a newspaper or trashcan up for their clients, or to mention issues they are seeing in your lawn and home. This doesn’t just include lawn and pest-related services…if our tech notices a leaky spout outside, they will mention it to you so you can address it! In addition to your technician, with Blades of Green, you will have a designated account representative to help you through the process for the first year, if needed anyone on our team will be able to assist you with any questions or concerns.

We recommend not only checking out the online reviews from customers but also their employees on hiring websites such as Indeed. We value each of our team members by investing in them through regular training, employee incentives, a positive work culture, and much more with the hope that they will give top-notch service to our clients.

At Blades of Green, our technicians receive extensive training during the beginning of their employment and regularly continued training throughout the year. Our turnover rate is extremely low because we stand by our core values and carefully seek out employees who live these out each day. We empower our employees so they go out each day and take pride in their work regardless of their job title. Each of our team members is background checked, drug tested, and receives regular training to help them improve their skill set.

The turnover rate of large revenue-driven companies is typically high. Due to their higher turnover rate, it is not uncommon for these larger companies to not provide training to their staff because they are unsure how long they will be employed.

Cross-Training for Pest, Lawn & Tree Issues

Most national companies only train in one of these areas. With Blades of Green, we cross-train our technicians so they can address any of these issues much faster than the national chain.

Pricing can be deceiving if you are only considering the annual cost of a lawn care or pest control program. A program may cost more, but the quality of service you will receive will be much higher than a lower-cost program. When considering pricing, you will need to look at many factors including the quality of products being used, the number of services provided, customer service, and employee training (among other things). It’s likely that a large company’s prices will be lower, but this does not come without risk.

These are 3 of the most common reasons you may receive a lower price: 

• Under measuring your property—which means your entire yard will not be treated.
• The quality of the products they use—we use some of the best products on the market, which include products to help prevent disease and nutsedge. Out seen is blue tag certified, coated, and 100% weed-free.
• Ghosting you—this is when a lawn care company says they have serviced your lawn but actually just stopped by but performed no service. Yes…this actually happens! We provide each of our customers with an after-service summary detailing exactly what we did, as well as recommendations. This is unique to each visit, so you can rest assured that we did our jobs thoroughly. All of our techs are also tracked and monitored by GPS to assure that the proper time and products are used on each property.

Below we give a side-by-side price comparison of our lawn care program and a national lawn care provider.

As you can see from the chart above, our prices may be higher, but you get a much more comprehensive service. We also offer additional discounts, such as a referral bonus and discounts on additional services.

We have our own test facility we call the “Lawn Lab,” where we actively test our products and methods. Most of the nation’s brands have eliminated the majority of their testing programs to potentially save money. From our testing program, we are able to take immediate action to get the best results and make yearly program changes to continue to offer the best programs and value to our customers.

One last thing to consider is that a national company is not going to tailor its programs for your specific area. Since we are local to Maryland and Northern Virginia, all of the products and services we provide are customized to treat the weeds, disease, pests, and weather we face in this area.